Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD)
Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) is a peer-to-peer education and prevention organization focused on helping children and young adults avoid illegal substances and harmful behaviors, including drunk driving, binge drinking, and violence. Founded in 1981 by Robert Anastas after the tragic deaths of two athletes, SADD initially aimed to combat drunk driving but has since expanded its mission to encompass a broader range of destructive decisions. The organization promotes its "Contract for Life," which encourages teens to commit to avoiding alcohol and drug use, driving impaired, and riding with intoxicated drivers.
With a national presence, SADD has established chapters in schools and community organizations across the United States and internationally. SADD also provides valuable resources and programs addressing issues such as mental health, bullying, and youth violence, while engaging in public service campaigns and educational initiatives. The organization collaborates with various partners, including government agencies and nonprofits, to advocate for legislation supporting safe driving practices and the legal drinking age. Since its founding, SADD has reportedly contributed to a significant reduction in teenage drunk-driving fatalities, demonstrating its ongoing commitment to fostering safer choices among youth.
Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD)
ALSO KNOWN AS: Students Against Driving Drunk; Students Against Drunk Driving
DEFINITION: Students Against Destructive Decisions is a peer-to-peer education and prevention organization that provides children and young adults with resources and activities that encourage them to reject illegal substances, including alcohol and drugs, and detrimental behaviors, such as drunk driving, binge drinking, bullying, and violence.
DATE: Established 1981
Background
Robert Anastas, a health educator and counselor at Wayland High School in Massachusetts, had the idea to create an organization called Students Against Driving Drunk (SADD) in 1981 after the deaths of two athletes he had coached. Both boys had been inebriated when they were in separate fatal automobile accidents. Anastas soon developed and taught a class focusing on the ramifications of driving drunk.
Anastas and fifteen of his students then established SADD. The students served as peer leaders and role models who created and presented projects that focused on changing teenagers’ attitudes about driving and intoxication. The organization created a "Contract for Life," which was initially an agreement that teens will never accept a ride from a driver who has been drinking alcohol or using other drugs. However, some argued that the contract inadvertently promoted underage drinking and only deterred teens from accepting a ride from an intoxicated person. Eventually, the organization revised the Contract for Life to establish better relationships and communication between parents and children. The contract then outlined the potentially destructive decisions related to alcohol, drugs, peer pressure, and behavior and asked teens to pledge to avoid such behaviors. The SADD mission shifted focus as well. In 1997, as the organization’s goals and missions expanded beyond a sole focus on drunk-driving prevention, the group changed its name to Students Against Destructive Decisions, reflecting its commitment to reducing other dangerous behaviors, including binge drinking, drug use, and violence.
SADD, now based in Marlborough, Massachusetts, expanded nationally, as students formed chapters throughout the United States. Soon after the organization’s creation, SADD leaders introduced the Contract for Life, which involves both youths and their parents. Advice columnists Dear Abby and Ann Landers republished SADD’s Contract for Life in their columns. CBS television followed by broadcasting the film Contract for Life: The SADD Story (1983). By this time SADD chapters also were being established internationally, and the organization extended its membership to include college and middle school students and youth at summer camps, churches, and community clubs.
Since 1991, SADD has designated a student of the year. Many members attend SADD’s annual national conference. Government, business, and nonprofit organizations help to fund SADD programs. SADD provides helpful information on its website and on social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, and X, and it publishes the electronic newsletter SADDvocate. SADD’s public service messages are televised nationally.
The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) presented Anastas with an appreciation award for his service to SADD and selected Carl Olsen, who was the first SADD president while at Wayland High School, to serve on a government panel studying alcoholism. SADD members have represented the organization at international meetings focused on driving safety, hosted by the World Health Organization and the United Nations.
Mission and Goals
SADD’s mission is exemplified by its Contract for Life. Signers of the contract state they are aware of risks associated with driving drunk and agree not to drink, use drugs, drive impaired, or ride in vehicles operated by drunk drivers or drug-impaired drivers. They promise to wear seatbelts and contact parents when exposed to alcohol or drug hazards.
Illegal alcohol consumption is consistently the greatest problem affecting adolescents, so the organization’s primary goal has been to prevent fatalities associated with drunk drivers. SADD chapters present programs covering accident simulations that show emergency responders removing bodies from vehicles and law enforcement personnel arresting inebriated drivers.
SADD supplements its general programs with discussion of the dangers of cell-phone use while driving. The organization also supports mental health programs for students in kindergarten through high school that focus on preventing stress, depression, and suicide. SADD programs also address obesity, eating disorders, bullying, hazing, and youth violence.
Youth are discouraged from using tobacco products, steroids, and prescription drugs not prescribed to them. Organization materials address teenage sexuality, pregnancy, and sexually transmitted diseases. Leaders urge students to remain in school and graduate.
Partnering with other organizations, including the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, SADD assists in devising programs to address issues of drinking and substance use at graduations and proms. Liberty Mutual Insurance helps SADD by acquiring information from teenagers about their experiences with illegal substances and their attitudes toward risky behaviors.
SADD supports legislation that enforces and maintains the legal drinking age of twenty-one years nationwide. The organization also endorses legislation requiring seatbelt use and the implementation of graduated driver’s licenses, which are obtained by youth who undergo several stages with varying restrictions as they gain driving experience and awareness of driving-associated responsibilities. SADD also promotes the proposed Students Taking Action for Road Safety Act.
By the early twenty-first century, SADD had guided approximately seven million youth. Researchers estimate that SADD has helped to reduce teenage drunk-driving fatalities as much as 60 percent since the organization’s founding in 1981.
Bibliography
"About Us." SADD, www.sadd.org/aboutus. Accessed 29 Aug. 2024.
Anastas, Robert, and Kalia Lulow. The Contract for Life. New York: Pocket, 1986. Print.
“Liberty Mutual & SADD.” Liberty Mutual Insurance. Liberty Mutual Insurance, 2015. Web. 9 Nov. 2015.
“Prom, Graduation Season, and the SADD Pledge.” Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Weekly 18.16 (2006): 5. Print.
Oppenheim, Sophia. “SADD: 40 years of making a difference.” Wayland Student Press Network, 6 May 2022, waylandstudentpress.com/102961/features/sadd-40-years-of-making-a-difference/. Accessed 30 Aug. 2024.
Rosenberg, Merri. “Kids as Messengers on Teenage Drinking.” New York Times 20 Apr. 2003: 2. Print.
Wallace, Stephen. Reality Gap: Alcohol, Drugs, and Sex—What Parents Don’t Know and Teens Aren’t Telling. New York: Union Square, 2008. Print.